am I beautiful yet?
tears are streaming down my face
my hip bones are protruding through my skin
my stomach talks to me in my sleep

am I beautiful yet?
my clothes are falling off my body
energy is slowly draining
my bones ache

am I beautiful yet?
my mind is filled with taunting thoughts
the cold seeps deep between the wrinkles of my brain
my heart murmurs your name in the dead of night

am I beautiful yet?
I did this all for you
for you to see me different
I hope I look different

so, do I look different?
do I look beautiful?
am I beautiful yet?

To my body that I desperately wanted to disappear
That I tried to shrink
That I yearned to transform into an impossible weight

To my body that I refused to call home
That I hated more than I used to hate the color yellow
That I wanted to get rid of

To my body that made me feel like I was never enough
That kept me alive, even though I wanted so badly for it to die
That I have covered in scars and tattoos in hopes of making it more beautiful

To my body that I am trying to ****—
I am sorry.
I am sorry for not loving you as I now love the color yellow
I am sorry for trying to make you disappear
I am sorry for making you scarred
I am sorry for the pain I have put you through
I am sorry for the tears you have shed over how you appeared in the mirror
I am sorry for trying to bury you away deep into the earth rather than helping you thrive on the face of it
I am sorry for waiting this long to say--I am sorry.

The moon comes up
every night
silently patiently waiting for me
to come outside and listen
to the lowly whisper
of the very first night
that it ever rose
up into the sky
it keeps replaying that same
lonely night
when there was nobody around
nobody in sight
nobody making a sound
so the moon began to howl
it wasn’t the wolves
it was the moon
from above
crying from the lack of love
so the next howl you hear late in the night
go outside
listen through the night
listen to the story
from long ago
from before the very first fallen snow
because how would you feel to be all alone
with nowhere
to call your home

They came up to the casket
some of them just passed it
I barely recognized who they turned into
some said goodbye
some said see you soon
others whispered
I should’ve been there for you.
When a young person dies
everyone tends to realize
just how precious this life is,
but why because of this?
Why because I died
did you all realize
that we should watch our words
watch our actions
and even the lack thereof.
I’m sick of seeing people
I never even met.
How wrong is it that I am here
laying on my back
being showered by love
and loss
and hope
and brokenness
when I barely got acknowledged when I was alive?
I am sick and tired of seeing the young ones die because our words are too strong
and our hearts too hard
and our actions misleading
and our voices deceiving
and our intentions skewed
and our patterns all new
and our society demanding everything we have.
I am sick of the view
from the coffin in lot B
of the cemetery off county road 43.

I am a sunflower
I am the Son’s flower
radiant
glowing
pollinating the earth with the seeds of joy

I am a sunflower
I am the Son's flower
mighty
growing
bending but never breaking under the strength of the wind

I am a sunflower
I am the Son's flower
repopulating
rejuvenating
regrowing a generation focused on self-growth rather than world-growth

I am a sunflower
I am the Son's flower
shedding tears for the hopeless, feel, and the weak
for the ones who don't have the strength to grow
for the ones who need just a tad more sunshine
for the ones surrounded by drought
I shed tears in hopes of giving them joy, hope, life, and happiness again

I am a sunflower
I am the Son's flower